hard drive problems

my external hard drive has all of a sudden decided that it doesnt want to work anymore.

when you turn the power on you can hear the read write heads spinning on it and the light illuminates properly.

when it is connected to the computer its makes the beep noise to say it is recognised however it doesnt display in my computer.

i decided to take the hard drive out of the external case and install it into the tower but the same thing happens.

is there anything i can do as im really worried as ive got nearly 300gb of music on it.

Take the disk back out, and look on the label. Scribble down the gemoetry (heads/cylinders/tracks etc) & post that info here.

Then plug it back in (internally), go to BIOS and attempt auto-detection of the disks. What happens? Is it recognised correctly (according the label geometry), incorrectly, or not at all?

Worst comes to Worst there is a company in Bristol that will be able to get the data.... at a cost.

Originally Posted by suzsv650

Worst comes to Worst there is a company in Bristol that will be able to get the data.... at a cost.

Chances are that won't be required. It sounds like the IDE controller has gone on holiday - gut instinct.

when i went into the bios it does recognise the hard disk drive there im also a bit confused as to the information you require

[pmapp]

Another thing to look at is looking under computer managment. - right click my computer, then manage.

Click on Disk Managment.

If it has picked it up - it should be showing in here.


Have you got anything else plugged in that get a drive letter assigned? May just need to change the drive letter your USB drive has.

Worth a pop.

http://adrianwarren.com/reviews/next...5-hdslide1.jpg

OK, so you'll have to turn your head upside down (sorry, I'm in the office). In the middle of that picture, it says "Cyli 16383 H" etc.

That's the information I'm interested in. Basically, if the BIOS doesn't pick up something close to what's written on the label, the controller is goosed. Lucky thing is that these can be easily replaced.

If it's easier, take a picture of the label & post that. Also take a picture (using a digital camera) of your BIOS screen showing the disk information there if you want.
EDIT: pmapp, I wouldn't advise booting to Windows with a defective drive, if the needle touches down outside of the LZ you've lost data, possibly written the disk off - and as yet we haven't established the fault.

Ok mate thats brilliant, as soon as i get back in il do this


cheers mate

ive got the hard drive out now and theres serial numbers etc on the label but it doesnt say anything that you have asked for.

the main casing for the external drive says iomega but the hard drive within is a seagate.

7200.10?
500Gbytes

Originally Posted by pmapp

Another thing to look at is looking under computer managment. - right click my computer, then manage.

Click on Disk Managment.

If it has picked it up - it should be showing in here.


Have you got anything else plugged in that get a drive letter assigned? May just need to change the drive letter your USB drive has.

Worth a pop.

it shows it in disk management but there isnt a drive letter there